


Scarlet's Walk

by stickmarionette



Category: Star Wars: New Republic Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Second Person, Yuletide 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:51:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/pseuds/stickmarionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life and times of Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarlet's Walk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alwaysenduphere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysenduphere/gifts).



> Thanks to my flatmates for encouragement. Dear recipient, I love Mara too. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to revisit the Star Wars EU, and I hope you like this.

You had no memory of your life before the Emperor and needed none. He took you out of the dirt and shaped you into something better. Nothing else mattered.

The first time you met, he'd taken your hand in his and smiled, and told you with great solemnity that you were very important.

That was the best thing he could've given you. 

 

* * *

 

At least it was, until he taught you to harness the Force as your servant.

The snap-hiss of your very own lightsaber coming to life was the most wonderful sound in the galaxy.

 

* * *

 

In those days, the Emperor was the only constant in your life. Him, and the glorious empire he had wrought out of the inferior base materials of a weak and fragmented Republic. To you, the Empire stood for order, and protection, and peace through strength. Surely that was worth dedicating your life to.

It didn't matter if others thought you an arrogant little girl. You knew, and your master knew that you were more. You were called to serve the New Order, and not to have your name in lights. The warmth of his approval was recognition enough.

You had no use for emotion. Only duty.

 

* * *

 

You were a killing machine, elegant and efficient.

You were justice, the deliverer of judgment from on high - investigator, judge and executioner all rolled into one.

In some ways, though, you were still naive. 

 

* * *

 

"You don't understand," said the female Mon Calamari who had managed to engineer the death of a Grand Moff.

"I understand perfectly well," you replied grimly, your blaster never wavering. "Traitors to the Empire don't get to preach to me."

"Not a speech. A warning. Have a care, Imperial. We will be victorious."

"Believe that if it makes you happy."

The other croaked something that could have been laughter. "Our numbers are so much greater."

"Not unless you use a wildly different numbering system."

Both of the Mon Calamari's large, bulbous eyes fixed on your face. "Answer me this, Emperor's Hand. How many non-human beings in the known galaxy? How many of those in chains? How few humans working to keep them docile for the Empire? It will end with blood. Ours, and yours."

You'll remember her, later.

 

* * *

 

Your world ended when the Emperor was murdered. Whereas before you had needed no one but him and could command all the power of the Empire in his name, his death rendered you utterly alone and friendless.

Worst of all, you could no longer use the Force.

Any mention of the Empire was like poking an infected wound inside your head. And then there were the dreams. The voices. 

_YOU MUST KILL LUKE SKYWALKER_

And so you would. No matter how long it took.

 

* * *

 

Talon Karrde started out as nothing more than a meal ticket, a convenient way to get yourself off a backwater planet and back into some semblance of civilization again. 

You didn't trust anyone, but Karrde was the kind of man who made it perilously tempting. An intelligent and calculating leader who welcomed questions, and who didn't ever see any of his people as expendable, he wielded his authority like few others you'd known.

In him, you saw a different way of being. One that might appeal, if you were free to choose your future.

 

* * *

 

Then you saved Luke Skywalker in deep space. 

Your powers began to come back, in fits and starts, as you trekked through the forest on Myrkr, dodging Imperials, wild animals, and the black haze at the back of your mind urging you to kill him.

The fact that you needed him alive was almost as maddening as the man himself, who despite all the fawning had somehow never shaken the air of a farm boy from a sandball backwater planet. That alone was irritating enough. Then there were the prying questions, and the way he looked at you, with eyes that could go from appalling innocence to the kind of canniness you could reluctantly respect in an instant.

You made a game out of trying to break his composure, only to find it next to impossible, thanks to the maddening calm that came with having given himself over fully to the guidance of the Force. To you, the thought was strange and a little terrifying. Even when it had been fully with you, the Force had been a tool. It was your servant, not your master. 

But then, Skywalker believed a great many strange things. He seemed not just to believe that everyone could be saved but to actively let that belief guide his life. You couldn't decide if that made him strong or delusional. 

(Maybe once it worked out with the biggest gambit of them all, anything else was small fry. You didn't realise that until much later.)

Most of all, you envied his clarity of vision. 

 

* * *

 

As the excuses ran out, you found yourself strangely reluctant to kill him, even as you stridently announced to his friends and family that you still intended to go through with it. Which was probably a good thing, since Skywalker developed the strange habit of helping you out and saving your life every now and then.

He didn't seem to expect anything from you in return. That was the strangest part.

 

* * *

 

When you cast your lot against the Grand Admiral, against the possibility of a new round of Clone Wars, and for the fragile peace of the New Republic, it was almost an unconscious decision.

Thrawn was treacherous, and dangerous, and well-equipped to destroy what order there was in the galaxy in pursuant of his own vision of empire. You had ample reason to dislike the new regime on Coruscant, but as you interacted with Skywalker and his friends, who somehow managed to live by their naive worldview while remaining capable and tenacious and doing what needed to be done, it was difficult not to gain a certain respect for them. And even more difficult not to prefer them to what remained of the Empire.

At least the rebels had conviction. For that was what it was, in the end. Not naivety, not really - they'd all seen the worst of this galaxy several times over. They just chose to live their lives by a different code.

You weren't sure if you could.

 

* * *

 

The final piece of your former identity fell away in Wayland when you learned the secret behind the Emperor's last command. With the knowledge of what he'd done to you with his dying breath, the memory of your master that you'd cherished in your mind suffered a crippling blow. 

Killing the clone Skywalker did the rest.

Conditioning, brainwashing, whatever you wanted to call it - you knew the theory well. But no one ever liked to think of themselves as a victim. You liked it even less than most.

How much of you came from his molding? It was hard to know.

You had been the sword of justice, and proud of it - but whose justice?

It was all well and good to tell yourself that you were serving the Empire and its citizens when you had hardly met any who weren't seriously crooked. And even among those you were supposed to hunt, once you got to know them as beings, with their often complex motivations and loyalties, it became much harder to see them as mere prey.

Thrawn was right about one thing - you had been a mere weapon, if an exalted one. That was good enough for a young woman sheltered from the realities of life in the lowest rungs of the galaxy. You've seen far more of it since. 

You couldn't fight nearly so well when you didn't know what it was all for.

Skywalker talked a lot about destiny, and maybe there was something to that. But even as a Force user, you didn't want to believe in anything of the kind. 

For once, you wanted to choose.

 

* * *

 

The sorry saga with Thrawn had one upside. At the end of it, the Force was with you again. And you even had a lightsaber, thanks to Skywalker.

This time the power was purely your own, not lent with strings attached, not dependent on anything but yourself. 

For the first time in your life, you were free to live for yourself. To figure out who you really were, and what you were willing to fight for.

**Author's Note:**

> Aside from the Thrawn trilogy, other Zahn-authored material on Mara Jade used for background: Allegiance, Choices of One, Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand, Handoff, First Contact, and Jade Solitaire.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Feedback is delicious like chocolate.


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